Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age

One of her cartoons features a white ghost with the caption: “Let yourself be seen.” Below it, Stephanie wrote, “I was nervous about putting my work out in the open. Because as much as I wanted people to know what I was doing, I was worried about being exposed. There was a risk of letting myself be seen. Like if they looked too closely, they’d disc

What got her there was not some lofty dream. It was gradual and persistent action in the right direction. She learned how to be an apprentice.

greatness hijack the work itself. Flexible on details, but stubborn on vision, as Jeff Bezos would say.

“Creativity is more likely in places where new ideas require less effort to be perceived.”

The New Renaissance is not about working in isolation; it’s about finding more

“There is no right time. Finally, it just made more sense than it didn’t.”

There is a secret every professional artist knows that the amateurs don’t: being original is overrated. The most creative minds in the world are not especially creative; they’re just better at rearrangement. In order to do that, they have to be familiar with their influences. They have to study before they steal. Yes, before you become an artist, y

Without a network, creative work does not succeed. Exposure to the right networks can accelerate your success like few things can. This flies in the face of what we typically expect an artist to do or say. “All my great opportunities have come from friends,” Hank said. Great work does not come about through a single stroke of genius, but by the con

When we show the world our ideas as they unfold to us, people repay such generosity. Because she shared

This is the Rule of Collaboration, which says genius happens in groups.